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Legal Wrap: No End in Sight for Lawsuits Challenging Obamacare

Republicans are never going to successfully repeal health-care reform, so instead they hope to use the courts to gut the most popular and important provisions and render the law a political liability for Democrats.

Republicans are never going to successfully repeal health-care reform, so instead they hope to use the courts to gut the most popular and important provisions and render the law a political liability for Democrats. folders on Shutterstock

Legal Wrap is a weekly round-up of key legal reproductive rights and justice news.

Republicans are never going to successfully repeal health-care reform, so instead they hope to use the courts to gut the most popular and important provisions and render the law a political liability for Democrats.

The Supreme Court’s decision in Hobby Lobby v. Burwell applies only to “closely held” corporations, but as Professor Steven Davidoff Solomon points out in the New York Times, nobody is sure exactly what that means.

Rewire‘s Sofia Resnick has this fantastic piece uncovering how many of the companies challenging the birth control benefit on religious grounds fail to offer parental leave for their employees.

In New Jersey, a bank that only offered health-care coverage for its male employees has settled the discrimination complaints brought by its female employees.

Senate Republicans remain opposed to the Paycheck Fairness Act, which should surprise exactly no one.

Equally unsurprising: opponents rejected the latest “fix” to the birth control benefit.

There are more calls for federal legislation that would put an end to the Hyde Amendment restrictions on abortion coverage.

The question of what, precisely, constitutes an “undue burden” on abortion rights is shaping up to be the next big test of Roe v. Wade.

Attorneys defending Texas’ radical anti-abortion law that in part mandates that abortion facilities operate like ambulatory surgical centers faced some tough questions from federal judges, but unfortunately that doesn’t mean the requirements are doomed.

Lawmakers in Missouri voted to override a veto by Gov. Jay Nixon (D) of legislation that forces patients that need an abortion to wait 72 hours until they can have the procedure.

In Ohio, the American Civil Liberties Union has asked a federal judge to strike several anti-abortion restrictions tacked on to Ohio’s budget as riders.

Meanwhile, a federal judge finished the job started last term by the Roberts Court in SBA List v. Driehaus and ruled Ohio’s “false statements” law unconstitutional.

Annamarya Scaccia has this great piece for Rewire about how Ohio’s conflicting statutes of limitations are making it difficult for some abuse survivors to find justice.

The Tennessee Supreme Court will hear arguments in a case of a Tennessee woman convicted of child neglect for relying on prayer to heal her daughter.

Meanwhile, a former Tennessee government employee is accused of stealing more than $216,000 from women prisoners’ trust accounts, many of which exist because those prisoners are unable to earn income on their own.

Oklahoma Gov. Mary Falin’s administration is fighting for the power to withhold documents from the public related to state-level opposition to Obamacare under the newfangled theory they are part of a ‘deliberative process’ and therefore privileged and confidential.

Michigan lawmakers introduced a bill that would requires employers to notify all current and prospective employees as to whether the insurance plan offered by the company covers contraceptives.

San Francisco is poised to pass a measure condemning sex-selective abortion bans.

Let’s close with a string of victories: First, a federal appeals court upheld New Jersey’s ban on gay conversion therapy. An Arkansas judge with a history of making inappropriate comments online has been removed from the bench. And Texas may get its first openly gay federal district court judge.